In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Viking Pearl’. During the spring and summer of 1997 I gathered fruit from several different nectarine trees located in my experimental orchard near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). One particular group of nectarines were white in flesh color, clingstone in type, and sub-acidic in flavor, and were thus designated as “WNC (OP)”. The seeds from this fruit were removed, cracked, stratified, germinated and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse, and upon reaching dormancy transplanted to a cultivated area in the experimental orchard described above. During the fruit evaluation season of 2000 I selected the present variety as a single tree from the group of “WNC (OP)” described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of nectarine tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ rootstock (unpatented) upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Fire Pearl’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,358) nectarine, by producing nectarines that are clingstone in type, globose in shape, nearly full red in skin color, white in flesh color, very firm in texture, and sub-acidic and sweet in flavor, but is distinguished therefrom by having a small blossom instead of a large showy blossom and by producing fruit that is much larger in size.